Stories from an insurrectionary childhood

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Elizabeth McAlister, Philip Berrigan and the author (on knee).

Seamus Philip celebrated his three month birthday on Thursday. It was just like every other day — nursing and pooping, laughing and cooing, chewing on his hands and slobbering. He giggles and smiles and looks deep into your eyes now. He can hold his head up and has mounted an aggressive conditioning regime with the goal of turning over and crawling ASAP. Watching him, loving him, caring for him, living with his constant changes — all of this provides daily opportunities for me to reflect on my own early years and upbringing.

I wonder how his dad and I will impart our values and core beliefs, I wonder what kind of man he will grown up to be; I wonder what stories he will tell his friends and his children about his childhood. I already know they won’t be the same stories I tell.

I was born into and brought up at Jonah House — a nonviolent resistance community grounded in its founders’ Catholic faith and built for the express purpose of nurturing and sustaining resistance. It was formed in the early 1970s, when the war in Vietnam was effectively off the front pages and effectively over in the minds of most people as a result of Nixon’s Vietnamization of the war. The anti-war movement had been killed off, bought off, turned off or sent off to jail.

My parents — Elizabeth McAlister and Philip Berrigan — and their friends looked around. They saw the continuation of war in Southeast Asia, thousands of nuclear weapons and new wars on the horizon, and they wondered who was preparing the next anti-war movement as the war planners at the Pentagon prepared for the next war. They concluded that it was them.

They concluded that the anti-war movement that confronted the war in Southeast Asia had tended to be episodic, reactive and too intense to sustain a long-term commitment from most individuals. People tuned in, turned on and burnt out — in a tightly orchestrated cycle that went way too fast to build the kind of opposition that lasted. Then they looked at the Catholic Worker, which has been plodding along — sometimes huge and vibrant, sometimes small and on the margins, but comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable since the 1930s. Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin had created a place where it was “easier for people to be good,” where laypeople could practice the works of mercy, serving the poor while resisting the forces of war, racism and capitalism that create poverty. How had they kept going? The answer: community. Shared purpose, shared prayer, shared study, shared work.

So my mom and dad formed community, revising the Catholic Worker model to emphasize resistance over the works of mercy and adding employment. The community would paint houses and share a common purse so as to not be beholden to the whims of contributors.

This is the place I grew up with my brother and sister — chaotic, intense, crowded, ever changing, never spotlessly clean, with dishes, sheets, clothes, and even pots and lids that never matched. But our homework got done, our lunches were packed, our teeth and hair were brushed (sort of), our curiosity was satiated, our needs to run and play were fulfilled, our minds were crammed with facts and figures and images, our consciences and faiths were built in practice on the streets and in the study of history and the gospels. We were raised by a village. Sometimes we loved it, sometimes we hated it. But it was always home.

Once when my brother Jerry and I were five and six (or so), we visited our dad in jail a week or so before Christmas. Only later did I understand how hard this must have been for mom and dad. But to us dad being in jail was just how things were.

We sat across from him in some dreary visiting room — maybe a well-meaning guard had hung some tinsel on the concrete blocks. Right away, Jerry said — in his bold and confident way — “Dad. I want to thank you.” I, the older sibling, had no idea what he was talking about. Where was he going with that? “Thank you for the best Christmas present of all.”

There had been no presents. It was not even Christmas yet. And by the look of dad, clad in beige and unequivocally behind bars, there would be no presents.

“You action for peace is a gift to Frida and me, and to all children,” Jerry continued. I was as stunned as dad — but not out of pride or gratitude like my dad. I was just a bit jealous. I should have said that. I am the oldest, after all.

We got a beautiful toboggan that Christmas from dad. We catapulted down snow hills for years on that thing, always fighting over who got to sit in front. We thought dad was magic or that the prison had one heck of a commissary.

Fast forward a few years to November 1985. Our little sister Kate had just turned four and Jerry and I were 10 and 11. It was the November 17, mom’s birthday and she was in Alderson, West Virginia, serving a two and a half year sentence for a Plowshares action in upstate New York.

We had talked on the phone, and then later that evening she sent us a card. I found it recently with a whole packet of letters from that period. It was addressed to “my dearest ones — Frida, Jerry and Katy.” On the front she drew an echidna, a small mammal that hatches from an egg and has spines like a porcupine. Every letter came with a picture of a new and strange animal. The letter said in part:

I’ve just finished talking to you on the phone and my heart is full and warm with a sense of you and your presence and love that binds us together even though we are apart. We are going to have a little prayer time now and a party. And you’ll be with me tonight and all the time until I see you again.

At this moment, with the little guy asleep on my lap as I type, I cannot imagine leaving Seamus and going to prison. But, now that I am a parent, I can start to imagine how hard it was for my dad to wish us a merry Christmas in a prison visiting room, for my mom to not be with her kids on her birthday. And I can be grateful — on a completely new level — for their commitment to peace and justice.

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16 comments

I appreciate this story so much. Thank you for sharing it. I can’t begin to phathom what it could have been like for your parents. However, the lesson you learned towards fighting for your beliefs is invaluable. Best of Luck!

Hello Frida! How lucky you were to have a family that supported you! Altho separated by prison bars you all were close together in each others hearts! I only wish I had grown up with half the amount of love that you experienced. When I finished writing my autobiographical essay two years ago, I ended repeating the words of one of my heroes, Anne Frank, who said, “Despite all that has happened to me I still believe that people are basically good at heart.” I also recall the words of that terribly exploited young film actress who spoke the truth, “There’s no place like home.” Take care of yourself, Frida, and take care of someone else.

I just love the photo with your dad gently cradling your cute little foot! What a joy that your parents based their witness in love for each other, for family, for the world. Perhaps that tenuous balance between family and prison was possible because they wisely chose to live within the sweet, supportive space of a loving, intentional community. You are all so blessed. May you continue to hold and love that little guy, it is a wonder and such sweet joy. I am so very happy for your family and grateful and proud to see all you do to make the world a place, as you say, where it is easier to be good.
Peace Frida! And love,

Thanks Frida for sharing this. It is wonderful how you and Jerry and Kate not only survived growing up in Jonah House with your parents often in prison, but thrived and have grown up to continue the great work your folks have given their lives to.

My wife and I and two young children were arrested during a Quaker Meeting For Worship in front of the White House during the Vietnam war and they also survived and thrived their parents’ commitment to saying NO to our nation’s horrendous war(s).

dearest Frieda, What a wonderful story and so beautifully told. The Keoughs remember those days very clearly and are always grateful to be part of your family history. thank god for their patient endurance, their commitment to peace with justice and their many sacrifices. They have been wonderful example to us all. You children have continued in their footsteps and I am sure this will continue for generations to come. We love and admire you all.

Frida, I remember a story in People magazine when your little sis had a pair of cute bib overalls on. It was when your mom was in prison–she was probably 4. I remember I cried for days thinking about her in prison and not understanding how she could have left you for the cause of peace. I could not wrap my head around her decision. This is not a judgement of her. I followed your parents’ and your lives through the Catholic Worker Community in Duluth–I met you here!
Congratulations on your Seamus. And thank you–thank you for sharing your family in the cause of peace in our world.

Dear Frida,
Thank you so much for your delightful story, and the photo of your dear parents and you! What a testimony your story is to the faithfulness of your parents and the Jonah Community. As I mentioned to you here in NH a few years back, before Seamus shifted your perspective (-;), Dan asked me at a retreat in the early 80s, 1981 I think, how the children of the murdered German anti-Nazi resisters–by then in their 40s and like you, now raising children themselves– understood their parents’ choice to risk arrest, imprisonment and almost certain death to bear witness against the crimes being committed in their names and work for peace. Dan, Phil, Liz and the community were thinking long and hard about whether both parents dared risk arrest at the same time, and how the community could support them in these actions and assure the safety and trust of the children in a situation they were too young to grasp. I cannot put into words what your story does to renew my hope, my joy in the reality of the Beloved Community, as I recall the Vietnam years and think about the wars we continue to inflict on our own and all the world’s children. The children of the murdered anti-Nazi resisters, while they experienced significant trauma in that context, are among the most creative voices for change today and their own adult children eager to translate what they understand about the legacy of the German resistance to today’s very different contexts but very similar issues. Your story of the Christmas your dad was in prison and Jerry’s insight–and yours! no shame there!– is one I will remember and share. Thank you and bless you and Seamus and your family on your continued journey! I hope our paths cross again one of these days.

Congratulation on your young son. I understand deeply the experience of watching your child grow, develop, and experience the world about you. My daughter Carol was a constant source of wonderment and joy. I wondered often as to what kind of world she was entering back in the eighties. My years at Jonah House had prepared and sustained me though the uncertainties of a life not in community, but with the realization of what a dangerous world we were facing.

I was privileged to know you as a toddler and a young child growing in community with all it’s faults and virtues, and having at one time full care of you and Jerry while your parents were both in jail, I have never forgotten the responsibility I felt for your well being and helping you through the trauma of missing your parents. It was a good experience for me in preparation for raising my own daughter in the context of a world gone very wrong. I have long felt an affinity for you and your brother and hoped that I had been for you what you needed in very traumatic times of your young lives.

I have never forgotten the lessons of Jonah House and in my own way continue the struggle for peace and justice in this world. I am not so naive to think that things are improving. In fact I watch with growing horror the direction our government and it’s corporate/financial masters are taking us, and I can only hope that the spirit of our people has not been so distracted, submerged and compromised that we will take this lying down. If ever this country needed a non violent revolution, it is now. The system of government/corporate power is so beyond the pale, it is time that we rise up to challenge the demise of our democracy and the utter disregard for justice and peace.

Congratulation on your young son. I understand deeply the experience of watching your child grow, develop, and experience the world about you. My daughter Carol was a constant source of wonderment and joy. I wondered often as to what kind of world she was entering back in the eighties. My years at Jonah House had prepared and sustained me though the uncertainties of a life not in community, but with the realization of what a dangerous world we were facing.

I was privileged to know you as a toddler and a young child growing in community with all it’s faults and virtues, and having at one time full care of you and Jerry while your parents were both in jail, I have never forgotten the responsibility I felt for your well being and helping you through the trauma of missing your parents. It was a good experience for me in preparation for raising my own daughter in the context of a world gone very wrong. I have long felt an affinity for you and your brother and hoped that I had been for you what you needed in very traumatic times of your young lives.

I have never forgotten the lessons of Jonah House and in my own way continue the struggle for peace and justice in this world. I am not so naive to think that things are improving. In fact I watch with growing horror the direction our government and it’s corporate/financial masters are taking us, and I can only hope that the spirit of our people has not been so distracted, submerged and compromised that we will take this lying down. If ever this country needed a non violent revolution, it is now. The system of government/corporate power is so beyond the pale, it is time that we rise up to challenge the demise of our democracy and the utter disregard for justice and peace.

I was esp. intrigued by your statement that your parents “revis[ed] the Catholic Worker model to emphasize resistance over the works of mercy and adding employment. ”

My own subjective memory is that the first people to vigorously speak out against nuclear weapons, before the Clamshell Alliance, was the Catholic Left. I was also struck by reading a book, I think from the early seventies, of an interview between them and Thich Nhat Hanh– how both of them deeply stressed the contemplative, and deeply stressed the active, with each informing the other.

Dear Frida,
I rejoice with you all over the birth of your beautiful son! I love this picture! So glad you included it. I have been a real Berrigan clan fan since I first met Dan in 1960. I met you first when you were having breakfast in that hotel in Harrisburg, PA – you looked to be about 6 then – some way back! I was a close friend of the very dear Mary Vaughan for the past dozen years – and I miss her JOY so! She would have loved to see you today! Wish I knew how to get an address for you – (maybe Carol and Jerry!) to send your son a little gift to say WELCOME to a world that his family will teach him by example how to love himself as well as his neighbors. I am blessed to know and have the good fortune to be able to follow your work/words; loved your presentation of our friend Gene Sharp! Glad to find you here! I love your writing and ‘stories’! Forward!
Bright blessings be upon you and your new family – all! Love/peace,
Elizabeth Sarfaty, Malone, NY

Hello, Frida. A mutual friend sent the link to your short memoir. I hope at some point what you have written becomes part of a book. I identify with your childhood. While I never had the experience of both my parents being in prison at the same time, my father was locked up for half a year (charged under the Smith Act) and there was certainly the worry that, with the Cold War becoming steadily colder, that my mother would also be jailed. In their case it had to do with their being Communists — neither had committed acts of civil disobedience — but the emotional impact for me was probably similar in some ways to what you experienced. I never shared my parent’s marxist ideology, but I did benefit from the example of their courage.

My memories go back a little further: I first met Frida when Liz was nursing her newborn in the courtroom during our trial (my first!) for the last Vietnam War protest at the White House one month before the Saigon government “fell”.

Frids: Stumbled across this searching for this very picture of your parents. It was taken just a year or two before I first came to Jonah. A wonderful reflection. I’m sure there will be more as your own child-rearing helps you see the story from the other side of the looking glass. Much love from Elaine and I here in CA.

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